Making Disciples of Oral Learners
CREATIVE ACCESS STRATEGIES
By Theo Asare
Team Leader, MANI Orality Track
President, Theovision International
We recognize that 60% of the
African population can’t, won’t,
or don’t hear the Gospel when
we share it simply because it’s
coming to them through literate
means they don’t understand or
relate to.
Targeting Oral Learners
• The widest most promising
opportunity to share our faith
with the 60% of the African
population
Oral Learners
• By oral learners I mean those
who learn best and whose lives
are most likely to be transformed
when information comes to
them in oral forms.
Telling God’s Story
• Oral learners transmit their beliefs,
heritages, values and other
important information by means of
storytelling.
• Storytelling fits perfectly well with
the African cultures.
Storytelling works best with
Islamic communities
Telling God’s Story
• Telling God’s Story is the key that
unlocks the hearts and minds of oral
learners,
• The key that transform their worldview as individuals and as people
groups,
• The key that makes the Gospel
comes alive to them.
The Challenge
• Oral Learners are the majority.
• Oral learners think differently
from those of us trained in
literacy.
• The oral learner way of thinking is
concrete.
• The pictures tell a story.
Missing the Mark
• We have been missing the mark
among non-literate oral learners for
hundreds of years.
• Oral strategy is shaping the world of
missions, giving birth to new mission
movements which are centered on
oral learners.
• God has provided a way to
communicate powerfully with
oral learners, a way they can
hear and understand, a way that
captures their heart and minds.
• Storytelling
Jesus’ Method
• He did not say anything to them without
using a story. . . Mark 4:34 (NIRV)
• Jesus used stories to communicate his
message
How?
How do you share the Word of God with people
• who are not literate learners?
• who don’t have a Bible?
• who can’t, don’t or won’t read? or
• who may not even have a written language?
• How do you disciple new believers who are not
literate learners?
And how do you train non-literate Christian to teach,
to lead, to train, to plant churches and most of all to
reproduce?
How do you share the Gospel to the two thirds of
Africa’s population who are oral learners?
• The way is to unleash the power of
God’s stories among oral learners by
igniting in the lives of hundreds of
thousands story tellers the desire to
tell the life transforming stories of
God among their own people .
• We call upon the Church to
devote energies, strategies, and
resources to provide access for
all oral learners to engage the
entire Word of God through
storytelling and audio Bible, so
that every tribe, every tongue,
and every people group may
hear His voice!
For more information visit:
www.InternationalOralityNetwork.com
www.oralbible.com